Page 15 of Sanctuary with Kings

"Would you fuck me?" I asked.

Marius stiffened and hissed. "What?"

"I amstarving," I whispered, closing my eyes. "And it isn't something fine meals and lovely dresses will fix. Or friendship, as much as that is precious to me too."

There was a long stretch of quiet. "You needpleasure. And I don't think either of us would find that together."

I swallowed hard and opened my eyes, nodding at Marius. "I wouldn't want to hurt Lillian—please don't think I asked lightly."

"You asked to make your point," Marius said, dipping his head in acknowledgement. "But you're better off making your case elsewhere."

"I don't want to put Lillian at risk by staying in London, either," I said, and Marius relaxed at last. "So you can tell her I refused the offer she bid you to make."

The basilisk laughed. "I'll have my pride suitably bruised when I tell her." He was quiet, watching as I returned to the work of packing. He cleared his throat and spoke again. "You don't smell of desire."

I startled. "Should I?"

"Asterion won't touch you until you do. I doubt even the wolf would, though he's hardly the most noble of us," Marius said.

"I take pleasure when others do," I said, frowning.

"Yes, that's why you were so useful to Birsha, of course. A powerful lodestone of pleasure in a house that tormented so many. But Asterion is not the selfish sort, and I don't think more force will heal you in the long run."

I stared at him, lost in the words, the way they made me into something mythical and yet stripped me down to a tool who'd been picked up by the hands of a madman. Where was I in the words? Where had I been for centuries? Surely not the creature locked in the cold, bare cell. Perhaps there was another version of me who'd been left on that soft bed in the high-end brothel so many years ago, who went on in her patterns and pleasures.

Lillian rejoined us in a moment, and I turned back to my packing, staring at objects that were called mine by a man who'd plucked me off the street and determined I should not die.

"I've failed to persuade her, I'm afraid," Marius murmured to Lillian.

She sighed and crossed to me, slowing her steps until her outstretched hand found my arm.

"Then I hope we have cause to meet again in the future," Lillian said to me. "Sometime when there's more to talk about than this war."

* * *

There was nothing decadent,pleasurable, or hedonistic about a rushed journey by carriage. Asterion did his best for me. There were warming pans, dense cushions, and fur blankets. But there was no lovely bed to fall into at night, and no controlling the ruts and jogs of the roads we traveled on.

My hunger had never abated, but my treatment at Grace House had tethered its straining urgency.

Being locked alone in the carriage day in and out had withered those restraints and let the carving, clawing, gnawing sensation grow stronger again. Through the curtain over the window, hills gathered and villages passed at a distance. I tensed and braced against the bucking of the carriage like I might a client, and I wished for company. Conall and Asterion were taking turns driving the carriage themselves, our only stops long enough to grab warm, sparse meals and a change of horses.

I was growing desperate after two days, bored and miserable and starving for touch, wondering when we might stop again and how hard it would be to convince Conall and Asterion to let me steal a meal from an eager tavern boy, when the carriage slowed and boots thunked on the ground outside of the door. I held my breath, waiting for Asterion to call to me through the wall of the carriage, considering still what Marius had said about the minotaur's intentions with me, when knuckles rapped and the door opened.

There was nothing like the sudden gust of fresh air flooding the cabin of the carriage to make it clear how stale and stagnant and sour it had grown in the days we'd traveled already. Asterion leaned against the door, and even though it was a beautiful glamour he wore with his gloves, exhaustion still wove through the magic in dark circles around red eyes.

"Conall's sending me in," Asterion rasped.

I assumed he meant whatever coaching inn we'd reached, until he glanced inside to the cushions across from mine, swaying so heavily, I thought he might fall to the floor. But he clutched at the top of the door to steady himself and looked at me with those flat, human eyes.

I shuffled to the far corner, and Asterion groaned as he heaved himself inside, shaking the body of the carriage as he tipped and landed on the seat. The door remained hanging open, the toe of Asterion's boots just peeking out. I stretched and caught the handle just as Conall called the horses into motion, and Asterion's toes slipped inside as I shut the door. His breath sawed in his chest, body crunched awkwardly in the carriage, but as I leaned toward him he stiffened, red eyes slitted.

"You don't have to—" he started, but he sighed as I pulled one glove free from his cold hand, and then the other, removing the glamour. His horns dug into the upholstered ceiling and his eyes slid shut in relief.

"I prefer this view of you," I reminded him.

He huffed, broad nostrils flaring, and then sat up just long enough to lift my feet from the floor and pull them into his lap. "This journey has been difficult for you."

My eyebrows rose as his thick fingers tugged on the laces of my boots, pulling them loose and freeing my feet.

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